


This isn't the First Time for you and I

by Nears_my_boytoy



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: 2019 reddie, Eddie has anxiety, Eddie is an out gay man in this, M/M, adult reddie, the only thing different from canon is that Eddie never married Myra and he isn’t closeted, theyre like early 30s here, this is pretty much all just dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-21 10:49:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20692277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nears_my_boytoy/pseuds/Nears_my_boytoy
Summary: Early on in his business, Eddie Kaspbrak gets to drive around a famous comedian that he likes.





	This isn't the First Time for you and I

Eddie gets the best costumers when he drives at night. When nobody else is around, or at least fewer people, fewer chances of paparazzi, people begging for photos, crazy fans. And sure, Eddie gets tired, driving until after midnight and getting up at the crack of dawn the next morning, but he'll drive around as many people as possible if it means getting more money. More money, more success for his business. 

Starting your own limousine business is not as easy as one might have you believe. And after running it for almost a year now, Eddie will take all the extra funds he can get to make sure that it's a success and he doesn't go under when he eventually expands. 

He doesn't know who he's driving around today, he never does, it's for safety purposes. Celebrities never know who's going to reveal their location, not even their limousine drivers, and that's totally understandable. Because his business is not that well known yet, he's only been driving lesser-known celebrities as of late. It suits him just fine, the less famous ones are the nicest. 

He pulls up to what looks like a club he's never been to before. He's never even been to this corner of New York before, but from the looks of it, it looks like any normal club you could go to when looking for a good time. Whoever it is that he's supposed to be picking up is supposed to meet him around the back at 11:10 precisely. Why it's 10 minutes past 11 specifically, Eddie has no idea. 

He pulls around to the back, carefully avoiding the drunk pedestrians crowding the building. When he parks, the time on his dash says that it's 11:09. Eddie is always at least 2 minutes early without fail. He sits and waits, the vehicle still running, in case they need to make a quick getaway. That sort of thing happens, it escapes him how, but sometimes fans find out where their favourite celebrity is located, no matter the precautions are taken to make sure that they don't. 

About two minutes later, right on time, a hooded figure runs out of the back door and makes his way to the car. Eddie unlocks it (he locks it every time he's sitting in it for long periods of time, just in case), and the figure pulls the door open and crashes into the backseat, not in the least bit gracefully. 

"Phew!" The voice says, and this man has a voice that is easily recognizable, especially to Eddie. 

Eddie doesn't need to ask him where his hotel is located since he already has those instructions, a neat post-it note stuck to his mirror displaying the address, but he tries to find something to say anyway, out of politeness, and he just really wants to talk to this guy. 

Because holy fucking shit, that's _Richie fuckin' Tozier. _

"Long night?" Eddie asks, and then promptly mentally kicks himself for such a dumbass question to ask, no less his first words to him. He watches Richie take his hood off and shake out his hair, as if it were wet, even though it hasn't rained in a little less than a week. 

"I was expecting rain," Richie replies. "Apparently it rains a bunch in NYC." 

And he says it like that too, _En-why-cee. _

"It does, but you're lucky, you got us at a good time," Eddie replies, looking behind him to see through his rear mirror as he backs out of the back parking lot. While doing this, he takes a glance at Richie. He's just as unruly as he looks on the television screen, but he's so much better looking in real life. Every pixel he could possibly be displayed on wouldn't do that face justice. 

Richie sees him looking, but instead of being weirded out by it, he grins. "New York must love me!" He says. And then he rolls down the window and shouts "And I love New York City right back!!" to all the pedestrians on the sidewalk. 

Eddie, who's turned his face back to his front windshield, feels mortified. 

"Sorry," Richie says with a laugh, but he doesn't roll his window back down, the cool night air blowing through his curls. "I may or may not be a bit plastered." 

Eddie shrugs. "Me too." And Richie is silent behind him, agonizingly so, so Eddie quickly adds; "I'm just kidding. There's not a single thing in my body, I promise, you can test me! Uh, ask me someth-" 

And then Richie laughs, loudly. He _cackles. _And Eddie feels a bit better about that joke that he made, the one that was totally unfunny, but he hadn't thought about it when he'd said it. It was like word-vomit, he was saying things without thinking, something he rarely did. He was always thinking of his responses before he said them, very careful about what he said. But for some reason, being in Richie's presence was making his carefully stitched persona fall apart at the seams. 

"You're funny, dude. God, that's hysterical." Richie said, wiping a tear from his eye, which Eddie thought was probably just dramatics. "Oh man, if my driver were drunk, god, I'd be so fucked." 

"Outrageously fucked." Eddie agrees, keeping down the grin that threatens to curl his mouth upwards. "Like, the ambulance doesn't even bring you to the hospital, just leaves you like roadkill cause' it's just too late, that's how fucked you'd be." 

"That's so fucked up!" Richie exclaims, laughing. Eddie watches him in the rearview mirror throw his head back and his teeth are a hued yellow-ish colour and it's so imperfect for a celebrity and for some reason Eddie blushes like he's even more attractive because of it. _Wait, do I find him attractive? _

He does. In a throwaway sort of way. Like, he watches Richie's comedy specials every time they're on TV, which isn't a lot, he's still just growing as a comedian, after all, doing small shows here and there and occasionally getting a TV spot. When he watches them, he laughs a lot and occasionally thinks to himself that this guy must be the perfect boyfriend, hilarious and cute, in a rugged, nerdy sort of way. Not likely to be hit on by other girls. Whoever his girlfriend was, she was very lucky. 

"Why'd you get plastered?" Eddie asks, just to say something, not wanting this conversation to end. And if Richie doesn't answer, then he'll shut his mouth. But Richie does answer. 

"People just kept giving me drinks!" He says, his eyes round and wide behind his glasses. "And of course, I'm not about to say no to a free drink, it's funnier when people are up on stage, drunk as shit, right? As long as I can still get my jokes out, nobody really cares." 

_Act casual. _Eddie thinks to himself. He's got to be nonchalant. _Don't let him know that you know exactly who he is or that you've watched his shows or that you follow him on Instagram and occasionally comment about how beautiful his eyes are or that he made you spit wine out of your nose. _"So you do comedy?" He asks. 

_God Eddie, that's so fucking stupid. Of course, he does comedy, he just said that, you couldn't have picked a dumber way to phrase that. _

"If you think I'm funny, then yes, I do comedy," Richie replies. And so Eddie says; "Tell me a joke." It's completely against his better judgement, to ask a celebrity to do something for him that they likely get asked all of the time. His role is to drive them wherever they need to go and be as chill and non-threatening or annoying as possible. But with Richie, he just feels like he can say anything, despite knowing him for five minutes, even though it feels, in a really odd way, like he's known Richie far longer. It must be all of the times he's watched him. 

"What do you call a good time but a bad fuck?" Richie said. Eddie shrugged. 

"Your mom," Richie said it with zero comedic timing, with the straightest face he could've. And somehow, Eddie snorted. The joke was bad, really bad. But it felt so familiar to him in some way, but it sounded like absolutely nothing he'd heard from any of Richie's shows. 

"Right, so you don't do comedy, got it," Eddie said, to which Richie cackled from the backseat. "Oh come in, that was good!" 

"It really wasn't," Eddie said, but he was smiling. Richie could make anything he said funny purely from his straight charisma, if nothing else. He looked at his GPS and saw that the hotel Richie was staying at was still a good half hour drive away, 20 minutes if Richie didn't mind him winding his way through traffic at the speed a bit faster than he was legally supposed to be going. But for whatever reason, he found that he wasn't in a hurry to get Richie to his hotel so that he could go back to his own place and sleep. It wasn't really weird to him the way he didn't want to be away from Richie now that he was here, but the intensity of it was weird, how he felt, like Richie couldn't possibly belong anywhere that wasn't beside him in some capacity. 

"Alright then, why aren't you out in the world besting me? You could have me out of a job- seriously!" Richie said when Eddie chuckled. _That_ was the funniest thing Richie had said to him. 

"Oh no, I'm, uh..." Eddie thought of the way his heart pounded and his vision swam every time he had had to give a presentation in front of the class in high school, how he'd have to take various puffs of his inhaler before and afterward, knowing it was full of nothing but minted wanter, but somehow, the puff of it at the back of his throat soothed him, made him feel braver. He hadn't used his inhaler in over 10 years, but the thought of doing _anything_ in front of as many people as Richie had at his shows nightly made Eddie almost reaching into his pocket to find something that he hadn't carried with him for a long time. "I get bad stage fright." He said, feeling that was as good enough of an explanation as any. 

"Well, my good fellow, that is what podcasts are for, no?" Richie was doing a voice Eddie didn't recognize from any of his shows, and honestly, he had no idea what accent he was trying to mimic. 

_You just want to hear my voice in your ear. _The comeback came to his mind before he even thought about it, but he didn't say it. He felt his face flush, where had something like that come from, especially to somebody he didn't even know? It was weird. He could remember he'd used that sort of wit with somebody before in constant, unended banter, but he couldn't remember when, or who. "Don't you have to be interesting to have a podcast?" Eddie replied instead. 

"I think you're interesting," Richie said, Eddie noticed he had leaned forward in the backseat, so his voice was just behind Eddie's right ear. The blush crept up his cheeks and he was thanking his lucky stars that it was midnight in New York City right now and Richie couldn't see him. The way Richie had said it was simple, and Eddie mentally chastised himself for the implications of it he was making up. He was bound to hear something that wasn't there when Richie, a comedian he'd found himself attracted to for a year or two prior, was in the same car as he was, breathing the same air, saying something like _that_ to him so easily. 

"So," Richie had moved backward to slump in the seat, changing the subject like nothing had happened. For him, probably nothing had. For Eddie though, he couldn't shake the way the top of his ears were almost burning. "'What's your name, driver guy?" 

"Edward Kaspbrak, at your service," Eddie said with a grin. He hated the fact that he couldn't just use the name he preferred, that in business you had to actually use your full name, even if you hated it, because it was unprofessional not to do so. 

"You mind if I call you Eddie? You look more like an Eddie." And Eddie didn't mind that, not in the least bit. So he mumbled his agreement as he switched to the left lane. 

"So what's happening in the world of Eddie? You got a girlfriend to snuggle back home?" Eddie couldn't see Richie winking in the backseat, but it was almost like he could _feel_ that he was, like he knew exactly what he was doing even if he couldn't see him. 

Eddie could feel himself cringing at the word "girlfriend" but he tried his best to keep a neutral expression. This was uncharted territory he'd never experienced before. Sure, some celebrities would ask him about himself for the sake of small talk, ask the exact same question, and Eddie would politely say no, he didn't have a girlfriend and hope that that was the end of that conversation. It wasn't a lie, he didn't have a girlfriend. But getting into the reason _why_ often felt like more hassle than he was ready to deal with. 

He wanted to tell Richie the truth, he realized. Something about him made him want to tell him every single little detail about him. Even more pressing, he wanted Richie to like him. He _really_ cared about what Richie thought of him. What if Richie was homophobic? Deep down, Eddie knew that he was better off knowing that now than finding out later, but it still made his heart pound uncomfortably to think of how awkward the rest of the drive would be if he told Richie the truth, and Richie didn't take it well. And Eddie would feel even worse, even more predatory just for looking at him. 

"No. I'm uh, I'm gay, actually." Eddie stumbled over his words, almost stuttering like somebody he faintly knew that he knew way back when, but couldn't remember much else. He was proud of himself for getting it out there, anyway, and he convinced himself that whatever Richie said, it would all be okay once he dropped him off and that would be that, and he'd never have to see him, in person at least, again. 

"Oh," Richie said. The surprise in his voice was evident. Eddie swallowed hard. "Okay." And then he said, nonchalantly; "Boyfriend, then?" 

"No." Eddie couldn't keep the contented sigh out of his voice. "I haven't got the time for that right now, I'm sure you know how it is." 

"Sure, sure," Richie said in agreement, waving his hand in understanding. "Hey, can we stop at a convenience store? Does that cost more?" 

"Yeah, sure," Eddie said. They were about 17 minutes away from Richie's hotel, and Eddie could see a convenience store straight ahead about four blocks up. Extra stops did cost more, but Eddie decided he wouldn't hold Richie to that. 

"Thanks, man." Richie's voice was soft, and they drove in comfortable silence for about a block before Richie asked; "How did you find out?" 

"Find out what?" Eddie asked. 

"That you're gay." Richie clarified. 

"Oh," Eddie breathed. 

"I ask," Richie said, sounding almost nervous, "because you're interesting, remember? I want to know." 

The way that Richie sounded as if he needed to justify why he wanted to know made Eddie's heart flicker with something not unpleasant. "Oh," he said again, stupidly. And he wasn't at all bothered by the way that Richie seemed like he thought nobody would ever dream of denying him an answer to any question that he asked. He was probably right. 

Eddie cleared his throat. "In college," he began, but then out of the blue, he thought _no, wait, that's not right. _The college story was the one he told everyone when they asked, how he'd needed volunteer credits, how he'd seen the Queer-Straight-Alliance needed volunteers, how he'd felt at home in the QSA in a way he didn't understand, in a way he'd never felt in any other group. How he'd met his first boyfriend, how he learned the way he had been looking at other guys wasn't something he needed to ignore, wasn't abnormal, like a bad disease he'd been taught was just as good as being dead. Thinking of that story, he always told it because that was when he knew for sure what he was. But now, he can't shake the feeling that there's something he's missing. 

"There was... a boy." He said, testing the words on his tongue. He was getting strange fractions of memory. It was incredibly fuzzy, but he could see enough to know that it was before college, before the QSA, before he'd ever said "gay" out of his own mouth to refer to himself. "He was... my friend, I think. We were best friends. This was... middle school." 

Richie didn't say anything about how Eddie had first started with college and somehow ended up with middle school, he didn't say a thing, and for some reason, Eddie couldn't look at him, he couldn't so much as glance at the rearview mirror. He kept his eyes on the road ahead, turned his blinker on to turn into the convenience store parking lot. "I knew when I was young," Eddie said, piecing some things together as best he was able. "I think everybody knew about me. I would've denied it if anyone had said anything, but nobody did. But- I think they all knew. And I..." he pauses. This realization shouldn't hold as much mental gravity as it does, but this is the first he's thinking of this in over 20 years. "I remember, I was in love with my friend. My best friend." 

He takes a chance and glances through the rearview mirror. Richie is staring at him intently, a look in his eyes that Eddie can't place. Almost quizedly. He glances up and their eyes meet, and Eddie immediately looks away, pulling into the lot, his heart pounding so hard against his ribcage.

"We're here." He announces, clearing his throat as he puts the vehicle in park. He sits, expecting Richie to climb out, but he doesn't. 

"You want me to go in by myself?" Richie asks him, faking a shocked expression. The moment from before is now long gone. 

"What, you've never been in a convenience store before?" Eddie says. 

"Not without a disguise. What if I'm recognized? Do you know how dire it is for us out in the world? Do you want me to get_ kidnapped, _Eds?" 

The nickname flies off of Richie's tongue and drops right onto Eddie's firey cheeks. But he doesn't notice the effect it has on him, because he's getting out of the vehicle, dramatically, of course, saying something like "Honestly, just drive. Leave me alone here to fend for myself. You'll hear whether I survived by morning." 

Eddie huffs in mock frustration as he exists the front seat. "Jesus Christ, _fine, _okay. You're so dramatic." 

Richie grins at him as he locks the vehicle and shoves the keys in his pockets. He had briefly considered not changing out of his pyjama pants before leaving the house because he was just driving, it wasn't like anybody would be seeing what pants he was wearing. He was glad that he had chosen to change. 

They walk into the store and, just as Eddie predicted, the place is empty, save for one guy staring down a wall of flavoured milk. He isn't paying attention, and the guy behind the counter doesn't even look twice at them as they enter. Actually, he barely looks once, something on his phone preoccupies him more than oing his job does. 

"Dude, we could totally steal right now," Richie says in his ear, probably not as quietly as he should've. His hot breath just above his neck makes Eddie shiver slightly, but by that point, Richie had pulled away and was looking at something else across the store. He's glad. 

"You're not going to though, right?" Eddie asks nervously. He doesn't want to be Richie's fucking accomplice in a theft, no less does he want to be his getaway driver. 

In response, Richie just grins at him, reaching for a candy bar and slowly miming putting it into his pocket. 

"Richie!" Eddie hisses, grabbing at the object from his hands. Richie puts it back on the shelf and walks away like nothing happened, but his shoulders are shaking in a light chuckle at Eddie's expense. Eddie sighs heavily and trails behind him, but something about the situation, Richie teasing him, pretending to steal in a convenience store, feels right somehow, right as in Eddie couldn't possibly picture doing any single thing else in that moment. 

Richie has gone towards the chips. He's got two fingers propped against his chin like he's deeply considering which flavour he'll pick. Eddie wanders away from him and gravitates towards the back of the store. For some reason, he's convinced that there should be a pharmacy, but there isn't one, just the employee backroom and a public washroom. He can hear Richie behind him, pick up a chip bag, maybe two, by the way it crumbles, and he listens to his footsteps circle around to some other part of the store. 

"Psst." He turns. The man in the milk aisle is now looking over at him, beckoning him over. Eddie debates going back over to Richie and ignoring this guy, but he eventually obliges, he seems like the type of dude that would just yell at you from across the store if you ignored him. 

"Doesn't that look like that Richie guy from TV and stuff?" The guy asks him. He's wearing a ratty hoodie and sweats, he's a tad bit younger than Eddie, but he looks like someone that couldn't even afford a television set. 

"That guy?" Eddie asks, pointing to clarify, acting surprised. The guy nods. "Nah, that guy's way too lanky, the guy from TV is a lot fatter." 

"Oh, yeah, you're right." The guy says after a moment. He shrugs, giving Eddie a fucking _peace sign_ before heading off into the night. He didn't pay for anything despite standing in the aisle so long, but the guy behind the counter doesn't even notice. So Eddie doesn't say anything. 

He eventually wanders his way back over to Richie, who's got just about any item of junk food you can imagine jammed under his arms. He's looking at the coffee machines, considering them. 

"Why do you need coffee at one in the morning?" Eddie asks. 

"Convenience store coffee is the fucking best at one a.m." Richie says, not looking at him. "But I think I should get some just so I don't have to make any tomorrow." 

"Do you want me to hold something?" Eddie asks, deadpan. Richie hasn't got a single free limb to hold a cup of coffee. 

"No," Richie replies, his face determined. Eddie sighs and takes three bags from under Richie's arm anyway. "Hey! Those are mine!" 

"I'm not _taking_ them, I'm just holding them!" 

Richie turns on his heel from the coffee machines and says "okay, I'm done." walking up to the counter. Eddie trails behind, planting the bags on top of the counter with all the rest of Richie's stuff, completely overwhelming the dude who has to ring all this shit in. 

"Are you throwing a party?" Eddie asks, hoping Richie doesn't think he can just open this shit up in his sparkling clean limo. 

"Depends on if the guests accept my invite or not," Richie replies, and he doesn't offer anything else in explanation. Eddie furrows his brow, confused, but then the guy has all his shit bagged up and ready to go, and Eddie doesn't say anything when the total is over a hundred bucks. He watches Richie, who just cheerily offers a handful of cash he fishes from his back pocket. He glances over at the bags waiting on the counter, and underneath the thin white plastic, he thinks he sees the packaging of what looks like condoms. 

_I bet he needs a constant supply for all the girls he must have over. _

The thought saddens him, just a little, and he grabs the bags without consulting Richie and walks out the door, Richie throwing a "thanks, man!" over his shoulder before following, holding the door open with his long arm. Eddie sets all the bags in the trunk and then, seeing that Richie is still standing there, with his arms over his chest, he reaches to open the door for him.

Richie grins. "Why, thank you, Edward." 

Eddie cringes and blushes all at the same time, but once Richie flops down into the seat, reaching his gangly legs inside, he shuts the door and walks to the driver's side. 

"You got any more stops to make?" Eddie asks. When he doesn't hear a reply, he looks in the rearview mirror to see that Richie's shaking his head, having already popped some candy item into his mouth and unable to speak. 

_He had better not be making a mess. _

As he pulls out of the parking lot and back into traffic (which actually takes 5 full fucking minutes, thanks, random truck blocking his exit), Eddie finds himself feeling rather somber that he's taking Richie to his hotel, no more stops, nothing to keep them together for more than the ten minutes it's going to take to drive there. After spending close to an hour with Richie, Eddie doesn't want it to end so fast. 

He doesn't say anything, and neither does Richie, likely because he's eating junk food in the back seat, and they waste about half of the journey in silence before Richie speaks up again. 

"Do you want a jawbreaker?" 

And this, for some reason, makes Eddie laugh. He's full stop giggling for at least 30 seconds before he can finally calm himself down. 

"Okay, noted, I'll put that one line in my next act." 

"I-it's just, it was completely quiet, and then that's all you say and it just- whew." Eddie chuckles softly before he quiets down again. "And no, thank you." 

It's silent again. Three minutes until they arrive. Eddie wants to say something, but he doesn't know what. Richie is going to go into his hotel and go to another state and do a few dozen more shows and he's going to have a dozen more drivers and he's going to forget about Eddie, and even though he would expect nothing less for someone as busy as Richie, it still hurts, because Eddie knows that he's not going to forget anytime soon. 

"Eddie," Richie says from the backseat. Eddie can see the hotel a few blocks ahead of them when he turns right. 

"Richie," Eddie says, trying to make it sound mocking, but it comes out more desperate, and he flushes despite himself. 

"I think that you're a lot of fun," Richie says. Eddie thinks he's imagining it, but the expression in Richie's words almost make him sound like he doesn't want to go, either. 

"That's honorary, coming from you," Eddie replies smugly. He can't tell Richie what he's really thinking, he won't have that be the last impression he gives him, his gay driver pining over an obviously straight guy. 

"And I still think you're interesting." When Eddie looks at Richie through his mirror, Richie catches his gaze and winks at him. 

"Thank you," Eddie can't help but say in earnest. He pulls into the hotel parking lot, his heart plummeting to the floor as he searches for a place to park. When he finally finds a parking spot, he puts the vehicle in park, and says "do you want help carrying up your stuff?" 

"Nah, I've got it," Richie replies, opening his door and walking to the trunk to retrieve all his bags. Eddie exists too, standing a little ways away to watch him. This is likely the last time he'll ever see Richie Tozier in the flesh, and he doesn't know why that thought hurts him so much or why he feels like he's almost certainly thought those exact words sometime before, even though it's impossible that he could've. 

"Thanks for coming to get me, and driving me around and stuff," Richie says, his arms full of plastic bags. His smile is a teasing one, but his words are genuine. Eddie shrugs in a "you're welcome" gesture, finding it harder to look at Richie's face than the ground in front of him. 

"Have a good night, Richie," Eddie says. His voice is quiet and reserved. When he finally looks up at Richie, he's looking at him with what he can only describe as a bittersweet smile on his face. 

"You too, Eds," he says, his voice just as soft as Eddie's was. And then he turns, walks through the front doors, and disappears from sight. 

Eddie checks the backseat for anything Richie might have left, anything so that he'll have to see him again, just one last time, but there's nothing. He's wondering to himself why it hurts so much to separate from somebody he'd only just met an hour before. Why did it feel like he was losing a limb, or like he was walking away from the most important thing in his entire life? He ponders this, and as he does, heavy footsteps approach from behind him. By the time he realizes, the figure is behind him, and he whips around, fight or flight kicking in, only to see that it's Richie. In the flesh, again. 

"Hey," He says, trying to act like he wasn't flustered. 

"Hey," Richie says, softly. They stand, facing each other for a while before Richie speaks. "Listen, I know this is probably really weird to ask someone who was just doing his job putting up with your ass," he pauses then, sticking his hands in his pockets. Eddie can see the gigantic breath he takes. "But uh, do you want to, maybe, come inside?" 

"Inside?" Eddie breathes, not daring to move, to assume, to take another breath until Richie clarifies what he's asking him. 

"To my, uh, my room? Fuck, I was afraid this would be awkward. I mean, it's fine if you don't want to, obviously, I just thought that maybe you-" 

"Yes," Eddie says, simply. He could've listened to Richie's nervous rambling all day, but he wanted to go up to Richie's hotel room even more. "I'd love to." 

"Okay," Richie says, a relieved smile on his face. "Okay," he says it again, turning towards the hotel, then towards Eddie again, smiling nervously. For a moment, Eddie had considered he was misunderstanding the situation, maybe Richie just wanted to have a drink with him, two bros. But the way Richie had seemed so nervous to ask him, it was undeniable, Eddie was understanding the context perfectly, just as he was meant to. 

"You're not worried about the paparazzi seeing you taking a man with you to your hotel room?" Eddie asked, jokingly. There was not a soul in sight beyond the busy street. 

Richie blushed. _Blushed, _and Eddie relished in the fact that what he'd said had made him blush, just as what he'd said had been making Eddie blush for the past hour. He recovered quickly, though. "I'll just take a girl up to my room in the next city I'm in and leave the media scrambling for an explanation." 

Eddie snorted, following Richie as they walked to the hotel entrance, locking the vehicle twice until it beeped, meaning it was most certainly locked. "Bisexuality is a thing, you know." 

"Tell that to anyone who works for the press," Richie said. This time, it was he who opened and held the door for Eddie. Eddie thanked him before he asked; "Are you?" 

"Am I...?" 

"Bisexual." Eddie clarified. 

They greeted the woman at the counter who waved them through, and when they were safe in the elevator, Richie said; "I'm... I'm something. Something like that, I think." 

And that was good enough for Eddie. So he nodded, his heart pounding in his chest when they reached the fifth floor, Richie's room was just three doors down on the right. Eddie could see that Richie's hands were shaking, just slightly, as he used the card key to open his room door. And when they stepped in, the lights were already on, and the bags that held Richie's junk food were sprawled on the floor as if he'd chucked them in and ran. He probably had, now that Eddie thought about it. 

"Welcome to the party," Richie said, his taller frame overshadowing Eddie's against the door frame. Eddie stepped inside and looked at him. "It's not a party if there's only two people." He said. 

"Sure it is!" Richie said, closing the door behind him. His eyes met Eddie's with a look of apprehension. "The guests accepted my invitation." 

And Eddie recognized the line as what Richie had said to him at the counter at the convenience store. "Wait, wait. You bought all of this stuff because you were hoping you could invite me up to your hotel room?" Richie nodded. 

"How long have you been planning that?" 

"Since you told me that you were gay, to be honest," Richie replied, smiling at him sheepishly. It was the cutest thing Eddie had ever seen. And then he remembered, the condoms Richie had surely bought. He felt the blush in his cheeks as he thought of it, but he said; "Well, this has got to be the best party I've ever been to." And the shit-eating grin that Richie gave him was enough to make his heart burst. 

And in the morning, Richie left to his next show early, but he left his number on a napkin beside the bed where Eddie slept. When Eddie woke, he smiled upon seeing the napkin, folded, he assumed, to look like a paper crane, but it was shit, pure and simple. But he didn't want to ruin it. And that was why he didn't pick it up, pocket it, he would grab it on his way out. He was halfway across the city when he remembered that he'd forgotten it. When he drove back, faster than he'd driven anywhere in his life, he ran up to the room, and he saw that housekeeping had already been there. The napkin was gone. 

No matter how many times Eddie would comment on Richie's posts, there was no way he would see his, among the thousands of others. And eventually, he forgot. He felt a pang in his chest when he watched Richie's shows on TV, but he didn't know why. 

8 years later, when Eddie got the call from Mike Hanlon from Derry, Maine, he remembered. 

He remembered everything. 


End file.
